I Carry Your Heart
by SouthSideStory
Summary: Seven years. That's how long she's been waiting for Sasuke to come home and stay. Letters and promises and sweet memories are all she has to cling to. But these things, Sakura finds, are not enough. Not anymore. NaruSaku and SasuSaku.
1. Chapter 1

_and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_

 _i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)_

* * *

 **Part One**

She pours her love into ink and paper. Letters carefully crafted, each character labored over, as she searches her heart for the right words. Sakura reports on matters small and large in Konoha, the other rookies, Kakashi and Naruto. She asks how he is and where he is, but refrains from writing the question that matters most: _When will you come home?_

Sakura isn't counting the days—she _isn't_ —but it has been two years, nine months, and one week since Sasuke left Konoha. And still, she has no idea when he'll return for good. Or _if_ he will. Sometimes it's hard to believe that he ever plans to.

The hawk waits patiently for her to finish her letter. She reads it and rereads it, praying that the hopelessness beneath her yearning isn't evident, then attaches the missive to the bird's foot. Sasuke's hawk carries her words away, and if there's anything she should take back, it's a little late now.

Sakura wonders how long she'll have to wait for a response. Sometimes it's only days, but there have been stretches of four or five weeks between Sasuke's letters. There's no rhyme or reason to it, no way to predict when she'll hear from him again.

August fades into September, September into October. The hot summer air cools to autumn's chill, Naruto turns twenty, and still, Sakura has not heard back from Sasuke. At first she's worried, but then she asks Naruto if he has received word from him lately, and her friend says, "Yeah, I got a letter a couple of weeks ago. He's near Suna now, I think."

After that, Sakura stops worrying and tries to quit caring (an impossible feat), because if Sasuke can't take the time to sit down and write to her, then he doesn't deserve her attention.

Seven years. That's how long she's been waiting for Sasuke to come home and _stay_. Letters and promises and sweet memories are all she has to cling to. But these things, Sakura finds, are not enough. Not anymore.

* * *

It starts on a cool winter's day after training. She and Naruto lie side by side in the grass, sweating and breathing hard, hands almost but not quite touching. She complains about Kakashi trying to foist his paperwork off on her (again), and even though it isn't the least bit funny to Sakura, Naruto laughs. He looks boyish and carefree, blonde hair tousled, blue eyes bright with humor, and for a moment she thinks of how beautiful he is. The feeling is both foreign and familiar, one part ache to two parts affection, and it isn't until later that night, as she tosses and turns in bed, that Sakura realizes exactly what it was: longing.

She looked at her best friend and _wanted_ him. Not unlike the way she wants Sasuke, except that it is gentler, less pointed and less painful. A subtler kind of desire. The sort that warms you all over but doesn't steal your breath.

The next day, Sakura takes a sixteen-hour shift at the hospital, just to keep away from Naruto, but when she returns home he's sitting on her doorstep. It's one of his more charming quirks that, even though he's a ninja who could get into her apartment without breaking a sweat, Naruto would rather sit on an uncomfortable concrete stoop in the middle of November than invade her personal space without permission.

(Sasuke isn't half so polite; in the weeks after the war, she once returned from a graveyard shift to find him asleep on her little loveseat, long legs stretched out so that his feet hung off the armrest.)

Naruto smiles at her, stands, stretches-and she does her level best not to notice the way his shirt rides up, exposing a span of bare, tan skin; her level best is not very good.

"Hey, Sakura-chan. Wanna do something?"

"It's ten o'clock," Sakura says, even though hour of day or night has rarely kept them from spending time together.

"Ichiraku is still open," he says, grinning in the way that lets her know he's mostly joking.

She rolls her eyes, steps past him, and unlocks her door. If it were any other evening, she would invite him in, so that's exactly what Sakura does now.

They sit on her living room floor, watch a scary movie, and eat double chocolate chunk ice cream straight from the carton.

"She's gonna die," Sakura says around a fudge piece, pointing her spoon decisively at the television.

"Which one?" Naruto asks.

"The pretty one with the fake blue braid."

"How d'you know it's fake?"

Sakura snorts. "Nobody's naturally that color."

He laughs at her. "Says the girl with pink hair."

" _Woman_ with pink hair." She raps his knuckles with her spoon just hard enough to make him say, "Ow, Sakura-chan!"

Naruto frowns and asks, "How come you're meaner to me than you are to everybody else?"

"Because I know you'll love me anyway," Sakura says.

Naruto blushes, scratches the back of his head, and looks away from her.

 _I'm stupid_. She didn't even think of how he might take that. "I'm sorry, I only meant that—"

"It's okay," Naruto says, and he waves away the rest of what she was going to say before Sakura even knows what it might have been.

* * *

Sakura's heart has often been confused, but never divided. No matter how conflicted her feelings for Sasuke left her, she has always cared for him with an unrivaled singularity that refused to fade. This is as true now as it was when she was thirteen, but distance and despair have worn her down. She misses warmth, affection, touch, closeness. Most of all she misses Sasuke, but he's gone and might never come back.

The love of her life hasn't been in her life for years, so what kind of love is that, really?

"Sakura?" Naruto asks. "What's wrong?"

She's sitting beside him on the roof of the music school (a physical manifestation of peacetime if ever there was one). They've been drinking from the same thermos of hot tea, an intimacy that Sakura doesn't care to give too much thought.

Maybe she should lie, but Naruto is the best friend she has in the world, and Sakura finds she wants to talk to him.

"I was thinking about Sasuke," she says. "Wondering if he'll ever come home."

"Course he will," Naruto says. "This is his place, just as much as it's yours or mine. He'll be back."

"But _when_?" Sakura asks, and she can't help it if anger colors her words. "It's been three years since he left to find redemption. Like redemption is a thing you can pick up off the ground if you just search for it in the right place. After everything he's done maybe—" She stops herself, because she's hurt and furious, and if she keeps talking she'll say something she doesn't mean.

Naruto frowns at her, his kind face serious and concerned. "You're afraid he'll never get what he's looking for. That you'll be waiting on him forever."

"Yeah," Sakura says, and she hates that her voice catches and her eyes sting. It's not fair to Naruto to cry about this in front of him. Her pain has caused him enough suffering over the years. So she sniffs, takes a steadying breath, and makes herself smile. "You're probably right though. He'll be home someday. I just have to be patient."

"It's okay to be sad," Naruto says. "You don't have to pretend you're all right if you're not, yanno?"

How is it that he can see straight through her so easily? Is she that transparent?

Sakura leans her head on Naruto's shoulder and asks, "I can't fool you, can I?"

"No," Naruto says, "but that's okay, 'cause I can't trick you either."

She smiles. "Maybe that's part of being friends. Real friends, anyway."

"Yeah, maybe."

She can hear the melancholy that has slipped into his voice, so at odds with Naruto's usual sunny attitude that Sakura asks, "Why are you sad?"

He's quiet for a long moment, then says, "Remember when you told me you loved me?"

Of course she remembers. Out of all her mistakes, this is the one she's most ashamed of. "I do love you, Naruto, just…" Once, she could have said that the bond between them was one of friendship alone, but she isn't sure that it's so simple anymore.

"Just not the way you love Sasuke," he says.

This is true, but not in the way Naruto thinks. Her affection for each of her teammates is equally fierce, if fundamentally different. Her feelings for Sasuke seem as old as time. Inevitable, unyielding, and she knows with certainty that she could wait for him for a hundred years and still love him as much then as she does now. It's not like that with Naruto. He's a breath of fresh air, their friendship more sustaining and fulfilling than any other relationship she's ever known. And of late, despite trying to push it away, Sakura has begun to feel something more for him. Desire that, frightening though it is, makes her hopeful, because she knows that Naruto's is a love that always gives and never takes.

* * *

 _Dear Sasuke,_

 _The night before you left Konoha has been much on my mind recently. The memory or your mouth on mine and your hands on my skin warms me, even now. Our first kiss, awkward and a little fumbling, but as perfect as a thing can be. We fit together like our bodies were made to touch, but when I asked you to make love to me, you said we should wait. You promised to come back, that you would see me again soon._

 _Well it's been three years, one month, and two weeks. I tell myself I'm not counting the days, but this is a lie. I count the hours, the minutes that separate me from you. Every moment apart is measured and found lacking._

 _Still, I don't feel alone. I see Naruto, my parents, Tsunade-shishou, Ino, the other rookies, TenTen, and Lee. I fill my hours with hospital shifts and missions and small pastimes. I'm teaching myself to sew (poorly) and learning to play the harp (horribly). Maybe my talents are limited to the ninja arts, but these little pursuits make me smile, so they're worth it._

 _You should see Konoha. The rebuilding efforts continue, and it's almost like the greenery that springs from ashes, stronger for growing out of devastation. Naruto and I are always fussing at Kakashi to fund some new park or clinic. He pretends to be irritated and browbeaten into greenlighting these projects, but to be honest, I think he likes any excuse to help the village._

 _Life goes on without you, Sasuke. Sometimes knowing that makes your absence easier to bear, and sometimes it makes it harder. Naruto remains confident that you're coming home, but then, his faith in you has always been unwavering, undoubtful. Not like mine. My trust is harder to earn and harder to keep._

 _Tomorrow will be the 1,140th day since I last saw you. I realized this morning that I cannot remember the sound of your voice, and I cried in the shower because I know this is only one of many things I have lost to time. I wonder if the years will chip away at my love for you, pull it apart piece by piece until it is only a memory torn in too many directions to matter. I would rather give it up than see that happen._

 _I miss you dearly, Sasuke, but I've decided to stop counting the days. To stop waiting._

 _Sakura_

* * *

She gives Sasuke one week to answer. Seven days pass, and when she receives no response, Sakura packs a box with her most cherished items: the photograph of Team 7, her twelve-year-old self smiling like an idiot between two scowling boys; a shirt Sasuke left at her apartment, grey with the Uchiha crest on the back; and a thick stack of letters. Forty-nine messages written on everything from fine stationery to plain paper (and even one sturdy napkin).

Sakura puts the box at the top of her closet in the hope that shutting her love away in the dark will help her forget about it.

Except it's hard to forget when Naruto comes over for breakfast and asks, "Where's our team picture?"

Sakura shrugs, like she doesn't know and doesn't care (when neither is true).

She prepares a simple meal for the both of them, just steamed rice and miso soup, but Naruto goes on and on about what a good cook she is.

She watches him eat, sloppily as always, and even though she'll never say so, Sakura knows this is because he never had anyone to teach him table manners. There was a time, when she was a different girl, spoiled and snobbish, that she would have looked down on him for this. Now she finds his messy enthusiasm a little sad and a little charming.

"I'm a better person because of you," she says.

Naruto looks up from his bowl, cheek rounded with a mouthful of rice. For a moment he just sits, frozen. Then he swallows, shakes his head, and says, "You don't need anybody to make you _better_. You've always been good enough. More than good enough."

"How can you say that?" Sakura asks. "I was a brat to you when we were kids."

"I was a brat too. So what?" He laughs and runs a hand through his hair. "Did you know I once pretended to be Sasuke so you'd kiss me?"

Sakura smiles and nods. "I didn't realize it at the time, but later, after I got to know you and Sasuke better, I figured that's what happened."

They finish eating, wash the dishes (she scrubs, Naruto rinses), and curl up on the living room couch together. There's not quite enough space between them to be strictly friendly, and Sakura is too tired of lying to herself to pretend this was accidental.

 _I want a fresh start. I want to love someone who can love me back._

"Naruto." He looks at her with sky blue eyes, and it surprises Sakura, how not-nervous she is when she says, "You never did get that kiss."

She leans over and closes distance between them.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Well here it is: my NaruSaku / SasuSaku fic. I should say that this story is not meant to be canon-compliant, although it will follow canon very closely in some ways. I expect it to be about five parts long, but I've been wrong before. (Usually I underestimate the length of my projects and one-shots turn into huge, sprawling multi-chapters.) Originally I intended to tell this fic from Sakura's, Naruto's, and Sasuke's points-of-view, but once I got into it, I realized this is really Sakura's story and so it will most likely be told from her perspective alone. Please review if you enjoyed this. I'm about to leave for my honeymoon so if my blog is quieter than usual for the next week, that's why! Also, the passage at the beginning is from the E. E. Cummings poem I drew the title for this piece from.


	2. Chapter 2

_i like my body when it is with your_

 _body. It is so quite new a thing._

* * *

 **Part Two**

Sakura does not lose her virginity. She gives it away to a man who deserves her. Divests herself of her clothes intentionally and carefully. Strips down to bare skin and an innocence destined to die a little death. Then she straddles her lover-to-be, who is eager but anxious beneath her, and leans over to press her lips to his.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asks.

"Yeah," Sakura says, because even if this isn't something she can do without reservations, she's ready anyway.

They kiss and touch for long, sweet moments, but after their bodies finally come together, Sakura sees her own teardrops wetting Naruto's chest. Not due to pain of her body, but simply because this is not what she pictured for herself, and it's hard to accept an unexpected reality. She wipes her face, and when Naruto asks if she's all right, she tells him, "I'm fine. It just hurts more than I thought it would."

* * *

 _Sakura,_

 _I'm sorry for taking so long to answer your letters. There's no excuse for my silence, so maybe I shouldn't give you my reasons, but I know I owe you an explanation._

 _I've spent so long away from Konoha that I feel rootless, unbound. For me, home isn't the place I was born; not anymore. Home is Team 7. Kakashi, Naruto, and you. Especially you, Sakura._

 _Reading your words makes me want to give up. To forget atonement and just come back to the village. Your letters are like lodestones, pulling me away from my search. I thought I ought to throw them away, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead, I stopped writing._

 _Here's the simple truth: I miss you. When I walked the sands around Suna, I thought of the desert where you saved my life. Touching a cherry blossom in the River Country makes me remember the softness of your hair spread across a pillow. Caught in sleep, I dream of you._

 _I'm a fool, and I hope you'll forgive me if you can._

 _Sasuke_

* * *

She doesn't write back. Instead, Sakura hides Sasuke's last letter away with all the rest and goes about her day as if she'd never read it. At the hospital she heals a civilian's broken arm, prescribes medicine for an old woman's cough, and delivers a baby. After work, she goes to her parents' house for tea, then meets Naruto at Ichiraku. He blushes when he sees her. Sakura recalls with sudden clarity the feel of his sheets grasped in her hands, his hips between her thighs, and then she blushes too.

"How was your day?" he asks.

"Good. One of my patients had her baby this afternoon, a little girl. They named her Rei."

He smiles, and maybe because there is a certain letter on her mind, Sakura can't help but compare Naruto's freeness of expression with the way Sasuke closes himself off by keeping his face blank, emotionless.

They eat their ramen, and then Naruto asks, voice rough, if she'd like to go back to his place.

"Not tonight," she says. If they weren't in public, she'd kiss him on the cheek to soften her refusal, but since they are, Sakura smiles at him and promises that she'll come over sometime soon.

She runs home, dashes to the closet where she has stashed all of Sasuke's letters, and pulls his latest from the top of the pile. She reads and rereads it, lingers on each and every word, savoring the elegance of his neat handwriting, the beauty of his language. _He misses me and dreams of me_ , Sakura thinks, and the thought sends an unwanted thrill through her. But would he care for her at all if he knew what she'd done?

She grabs a pen from her desk and a fresh sheet of paper and writes:

 _Sasuke,_

 _When are you coming home? Tomorrow? Next month? Next year?_

 _I don't want to hear from you until we're speaking face to face. Please don't write me again._

 _Sakura_

* * *

She kisses Naruto in the shade of the thirty-second training ground. Sakura is six days shy of her twenty-first birthday and three months into this affair. They had planned to train today, but lately any opportunity to spend time alone has turned into this.

She breaks the kiss, sits up, unbuttons her shirt, and takes it off. Naruto looks up at her with heavy-lidded eyes, puts his hands on her waist. Sakura can feel the calluses on his palms and fingers, rough against the smooth skin of her belly. The sight of him so serious and intent makes butterflies flutter low in her stomach and heat spread throughout her body.

Before she can move to take off the rest of her clothes, Naruto catches her hands and asks, "What is this? That we're doing, I mean. Are we together or just…"

"Do we have to define it?" Sakura asks. "I like being with you this way, whatever it is."

"I knew you'd say that." He frowns, sits up, and lifts her off of his lap as easily as if she weighs nothing.

Sakura grabs him by his natural arm and asks, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I want to kiss you in front of everyone and tell our friends we're together and laugh at your father's bad jokes when you take me home to your parents," Naruto says. "But that isn't what you want, is it?"

"No," Sakura admits, "I'm not ready for all of that."

He says, "I know Sasuke hurt you. And maybe you're still hoping you can work things out when he comes back to the village—"

"He's not coming home, Naruto. You should accept that. I have."

"Is that what all of this is about?" he asks, and she can hear a flare of rare temper in his voice. "You've given up on Sasuke, so you're messing around with me?"

Sakura shakes her head. "No."

Naruto gives her a sad smile and says, "You can't fool me, remember?"

* * *

They don't talk to each other for the next two weeks, but then Sakura sees Naruto at the ribbon-cutting for the new school. Both of them had worked on the project with Kakashi, Iruka, and a number of community leaders, despite pressure from some corners that education for civilians' children shouldn't be a priority for their still-recovering village.

A small reception follows, which Kakashi co-hosts with the principal of Konoha Elementary. Sakura sits at a corner table, drinks the sadly unspiked punch, and tugs at the hem of the little black dress she tells herself she did not wear to catch Naruto's attention. Ino takes the seat next to her and says, "Stop looking so gloomy. The school's gonna open on Monday and lots of tiny brats are going to get a good education because you helped fight for it."

Sakura can't help but smile. "Thanks for the pep talk."

"No problem." Ino frowns after taking a sip of her punch and asks, "What is this crap?"

"I don't know," Sakura says, "but let's get a real drink once this wraps up."

"You don't have to tell me twice."

Somewhere between the reception and the bar Ino manages to invite half their friends, and so the Rookie Nine (short one) show up at the Blue Dragon. Sakura drinks half a bottle of sake, dances with Ino, and wins a dart-throwing contest.

 _If Sasuke was here, he would have won._

It's a useless thought because Sasuke is who knows how many miles away.

Naruto walks over and asks, "Wanna dance?"

"Sure."

The music slows just as they step onto the hardwood floor, and she wonders if Naruto had the forethought to ask the band to play something more romantic. She wraps her arms around his neck and lets him grasp her waist between his strong hands.

"You're beautiful," Naruto says.

"So are you."

And it's true, because she has never seen a smile as warm or eyes as bright as Naruto's. She loves the marks on his cheeks, the scars on his hands, the way he says "yanno" all the time and how he still calls her "Sakura-chan" when no one else does.

"Can I spend the night at your place?" she asks.

He hesitates, and she imagines he's considering the consequences of continuing an affair with a woman who loves his best friend. It worries Sakura too, but Sasuke isn't coming back, and if she doesn't try to move on, she'll be stuck in the same place forever.

"Yeah," Naruto says.

They leave the bar early, go to his apartment, and spend the night making love and talking. Then morning light creeps in through the gaps in the blinds, golden sunbeams disrupting the dark before dawn. Sakura lies beside Naruto, her head on his shoulder, tracing nonsense words on his chest. She's sated, tired, and happy, loving the freedom of her nakedness and the heat of the man next to her.

"I've got to get to work," Sakura says. "My next shift starts in an hour."

"Okay." Naruto kisses her goodbye and lets her go.

* * *

Spring blooms into summer, and Sakura finds that her days are filled with purpose, her nights with sweet companionship. But there are still moments, usually when she finds herself alone, that she thinks of Sasuke. Imagines him wandering a desert, a meadow, a forest, and she wonders how far away he is. If he's well or ill, sad or content. Because no matter whose bed she sleeps in, there's a part of her heart that belongs to Sasuke. And even though Sakura has given up hope of seeing him again, she'll never stop wishing him home.

* * *

"This is silly," she says.

"It'll be fun, you'll see."

They've built a pallet out of every blanket and pillow in her apartment. This makeshift bed sits in the middle of the living room floor, a mess of mismatched comforters, quilts, and the knitted throws that Okaasan makes for her.

Naruto kisses her and says, "Relax. I'll get us something to drink."

She strips down to her undershirt and panties, slips between the covers, and laughs when Naruto returns from the kitchen with two steaming mugs. "Who drinks hot chocolate in July?" Sakura asks.

"We do." He sets the cups on the floor to her left, lies next to her, and kisses her cheek, the tip of her nose, her lips. Sakura runs her fingers through his short hair, tugs him down to kiss her throat.

Then she hears the sound of something hitting the floor, and in between one breath and the next, her heart stops. Sakura looks over and sees a dusty, threadbare bag sitting on the carpet. And beside the travel pack stands Sasuke, just as dirty and frayed, staring at her. His expression is hard, unreadable, but his remaining hand is clenched and shaking at his side.

She pushes Naruto away and scrambles to stand, only to realize that her state of dress—a thin white tank top and blue cotton underwear—only damns her further. Sakura grabs her skirt from the pile of clothes on the floor and steps into it quickly.

"Sasuke," she says, and no matter how awful the circumstances of this reunion, for a moment all she wants to do is throw herself at him, because he's _here_ , finally home, and she can barely believe it. Sakura takes a step forward, but before she can say anything besides his name, Sasuke grabs his pack, turns his back on her, and leaves.

"Wait!" She doesn't even bother to put on shoes, just hurries out the front door after him. "Please, Sasuke."

He's fast, always has been, and Sakura doesn't catch up to him until he stops in an alley between a bookshop and a grocery store.

"What is it you want to say?" he asks, and even harsh and accusatory, his voice is the sweetest thing she has heard in three-and-a-half years.

"Please don't go," she says. "Please don't leave again."

"Why not?" he asks, and now she can hear the thickness of his words, the grief he's barely holding back beneath his anger. "It looks like you and Naruto are doing just fine without me."

"It isn't what you think," she says weakly, "we're not…"

"Go ahead, lie. Tell me you haven't been screwing him." He looks away from her, and when he speaks again, his voice breaks, "Please tell me that."

She says nothing, and Sasuke presses her against the brick wall of the bookshop, cups her cheek with his hand. "Dammit, Sakura," he says, "why?"

"You were gone," she whispers. "You were gone and I thought you were never coming back."

"I told you I'd come home. I promised."

"You stopped writing to me," Sakura says, and now she's angry all over again. "What was I supposed to think?"

"You were supposed to _wait_ ," he says.

She can't help it, she leans into his palm, savors the warmth of his skin against her cheek. "I couldn't keep my life on hold for you any longer."

"So what then?" he asks. "I took too long to come home, so we're just… just done?"

"I don't know," Sakura says, "but whatever happens between us, I don't want you to leave Konoha again. You'll always be my friend, my teammate, the first boy I ever loved, and if you go again—" She stops, takes a breath to steady herself, and says, "I don't think I could stand it, Sasuke. So please, no matter how angry you are, just _stay_. We'll work out this mess somehow."

He leans down, closer and closer. It's just now that Sakura realizes how much taller he's gotten in the time they've been apart, and this new difference makes her feel delicate but not fragile.

Sasuke kisses her forehead and says, "I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** This has actually been written for quite some time (since May I think), but it received such a vehemently negative response on tumblr that I hesitated to post it here. I got very nasty anonymous messages about this part of the story and was told to get "this OOC shit out of the SasuSaku tag" (by an absolute idiot, so that was just funny). However, upon further reflection, I decided that it's not fair to withhold this chapter from the people who want to read it. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please do not leave rude or flaming reviews. And thank you to those who reviewed, favorited, or liked this story based on its first installment. Your feedback is very appreciated. :)


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